Stories of the Sideshow
by Raefever
Summary: Different stories of what went on in the Freak Show at the edge of town.


**A/N: These chapters will focus on what the Freaks thought about in their final moments.**

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The knife flew quickly, from Elsa's hand to Ethel's eye.

It would kill her.

She knew that even before it flung from Elsa's hand.

Elsa really was all about Elsa after all, she had no passion for anyone else, at least as long as Ethel had known her she hadn't. Maybe once she had cared about someone besides herself.

As much as she claimed to love her "monsters", no matter how affectionately she said it that's all they were to her. Monsters.

Freaks, abnormalities, oddities with a knack for performing and giving her money, while they made enough to just get by.

Yet Elsa was the one to play the guilt trip card.

"Come! Kiss the feet of the poor, hard done by Elsa Mars, don't forget how much she sacrificed for you! Or forget how she saved you in some way!"

Ethel supposed that last part was true, they all had been saved in a way, but still Elsa hadn't had the worst life of the bunch, she just had the childish dreams of fame you would expect from a child. And she would not let anyone in the way of those dreams.

Elsa's life wasn't sad like she made it out to be, the people with the saddest lives were the ones who surrounded her.

Ethel wouldn't ever forget the dark, sunken eyes of a young girl going by the name of Everly who'd lived on the streets since she was barley ten years old, a girl who's mother had died giving birth to her youngest sister when she was six and got stuck with a drunken, abusive father. Everly let him beat her until she was nearly unconscious in the hope he would leave her younger brother and sisters alone. She gotten kicked out once the depression hit, never allowed to stay in an orphanage for long, she'd grown too aggressive and strong to be let near the other children. So on the streets she stayed until on day more than a decade and a half after being kicked out, Elsa Mars had found her, nearly starved to death, but somehow she'd seen something in the tall and lanky woman.

Elsa would tell you she was brave, but to Ethel, Eve was as brave as they came.

Paul's emotionless, cold face was one that would burn into Ethel's mind forever. A lad born with odd hands on a street that forced you to learn how to fight, Paul had spent most of his childhood beat to crap by other kids. He'd found himself depressed and alone, with only a hope of coming to America in search of a better life. All he found was a country in turmoil, he was more alone than ever, seen as a monster by practically everyone. In a strange set of mind he'd decided that if that's what they wanted, a monster, that was exactly what he'd give them, something to fear and hate and gawk at. He had hoped no one would ever love or care about him, he didn't want affection. But years later he was still here, still fighting and now he has Penny, a girl who'd fought to be with him.

Elsa can claim to be strong, but Paul was truly the strongest amongst them.

The terror plastered on Suzi's face when she'd first came to the freak show would make anyone think she'd done or seen something no one ever should have. She'd awake in fits of panic where nobody had any hopes to console her. Also having spent years of her life homeless, constantly gawked at, cursed to spend her life alone, ignored by the world because of her lack of legs, she'd turned to the freak show just like they all did.

Ethel knew Elsa could say she was damaged and had been hurt by others, but she'd never be able to say it as truthfully as Suzi.

Elsa could be cruel.

She had done dreadful things.

She had power over them.

She'd try to control them.

Once Eve had taken a sudden raging fever in the night. Elsa refused to leave her to rest, instead forcing her to perform the same day. She passed out on stage and put the whole show on hold. Elsa was furious, never once stopping to apologise or take the blame.

Paul and Jimmy once broke something of hers and she had them doing extra chores for hours each day for weeks.

But, Ethel didn't like to picture where most of them would be if Elsa hadn't took them in.

She could only imagine Toulouse swinging that little pickaxe in a chain gang, or Pepper sitting alone in that terrible, terrible orphanage. Ma Petite on that little chain leash.

Even grimmer, Suzi, scared on her own, traumatised.

Eve's dark eyes pleading to stay open, knowing if they closed they might never open again. Her tall body slumped against a brick wall.

Or Paul drinking himself into the ground, bottle after bottle. He'd eventually even ruin his pretty boy face. His elongated, boney fingers pulling a trigger.

The Tattler sisters sat in jail together, resenting each other more and more by the minute before they finally faced the electric chair together.

Then her mind wandered to where her boy, Jimmy Darling would have found himself. In an orphanage, bullied and beaten by the other "normal" kids of the children's home. No job, growing up in the aftermath of the depression and a war, starving and withering away in the streets. No mother to speak of.

Then Ethel thought of herself, in that drunk tank where she should have sat there and died. Where Elsa had bailed her out and found her boy for her. Given her a job and a home and built a family around them. An odd family, with sparsely any blood between them, but blood wasn't what made them family.

Ethel could not for the life of her figure out why Elsa wanted anything to do with the freaks of the world, she said she felt sorry for them but Ethel knew it was a deeper reason than that. She guessed Elsa saw herself in them in a way. Maybe she could relate to sweet Pepper locked away in an orphanage, unloved and lonely, she might feel the same scared trauma legless Suzi felt,

Or maybe she couldn't bare to see another young woman be walked past and ignored in the cold city, just maybe she could she the hurt and abuse in their eyes.

Maybe Elsa wasn't all that bad, perhaps she just wanted to build the family none of them ever had.

And after all the terrible things Elsa has done to them, as the knife slipped closer, Ethel thought maybe, just maybe she had forgiven Elsa.

After all no point in holding a grudge.

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 **A/N: I thought about how Ethel came to the conclusion of just forgiving Elsa and decided I could make a chapter out of it.**

 **If you enjoyed please leave a review and let me know!**


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